Daniel Hannan, a somewhat obscure Conservative MEP, gave Gordon Brown an eloquent tongue-lashing in the European Parliament, criticising the British prime minister for his economic mismanagement, imprudent fiscal policies and reneging on the promise of free trade by subsidising and nationalising “vast swathes of the British economy”. It’s a brilliant, rollicking speech, one which went virtually unreported in the mainstream British media.

On YouTube, however, the speech became a massive success (apparently this is largely due to the coverage it received in the American’s conservative blogosphere). So far there have been over 1.5 million views of the clip, and mainstream media have been falling over themselves to cover it.

This is just one example of online channels and content influencing the mainstream media agenda, something which will be happening more and more.